Twig Heals

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Well, sort of. I'm back on a Scroll of Resurrection trying to rekindle an old flame, and I must say... so far so good!

World of Warcraft holds a lot of memories for me. Some of them epic, some fail, some even beyond words, but all of them fond and somehow priceless. Coming back to this game now after quitting just over 2 years ago feels a bit like returning to my high school after college, or my home town after living out of state for years. It's nostalgic and emotional and altogether wonderful... at least to start.

There's a saying my crazy uncle Bill was always fond of, and it goes "You can never go home again". And it implies that 'home' is not a place but instead is a place in time. We all know that no matter how much we may wish it, we can never go back to the old days. We can never revisit our youth or rewind the clocks to a happy time and relive it.

But is WoW different?

Possibly. If you love the characters, if you love the story, if you love your toon in a way that isn't exactly conducive to well adjusted behavior, then WoW is a home that remains EXACTLY how you leave it. Sure some new stuff has happened, some now places have popped up out of the nether, and yeah, the old vanilla content was revamped 3 years ago and is not what it once was. But, much like a strip mall that popped up in your home town where you used to ride bikes with friends, you're able to ignore it and focus on all the things that remain unchanged from how you remember them.

It's an amazing thing, being able to go home again. And I highly recommend it to all.

However. (There's always a but)

As great as it is to find my toon where I left him, unchanged by time... there truly is something missing. The same thing that is missing from the places of our past when we revisit them years later. The thing that makes our memories special, memorable, and yea even real.

That thing is people. (My head shrinker would have a field day with this sentence.)

The people I forged bonds with, friendships with, relationships with, they are all gone. They've moved on, they've grown, they've changed, pretty much all the crappy things time forces people from our pasts to do. And there is no undoing it.

So, ok, thank you crazy uncle Bill, you were right. You can NEVER go home again. Even in a virtual reality. But you can revisit, and you can remember, and you can, if you're lucky, find someone to go back with you. And that is still a wonderful thing... and always will be.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Twig Heals is a year old, and I'm going to take the lazy route here and post a "look back" blog to celebrate! (Sorry, there's no time to write a shiney new post, I have to leave for work in 15 minutes.)

Without much adieu, here are some of my favorite posts from this past year. I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I did writing.

There have been a lot of tirades on this blog, but my rant about the ICC buff is probably my favorite. I still secretly wish our GM will "accidentally" disable the buff one night to see how we fare, but that's mostly because I'm a bit of a wow massochist. Maybe after we down LK? =D

I obsessed over this rare spawn for months and months, scouring the interwebs for any and all information I could find on it, all in an effort to score me a super sexy flying mount. I never did get to kill it though (not yet anyway), but I did compile all the info I found and posted it on the blog for all to see. My hope is that somebody, somewhere out there, is flying around on a TLPD saying "Thank you, Twig Heals!"

Ok, so RP never really was my thing. There are so many unwritten rules, so much lore to keep straight, and it's so hard to RP duel while an Alliance rogue is chewing your face off. Still, I had a lot of fun coming up with a back story for Beck, and I'm glad I shared it with you all (I learned a ton about RP from your feedback emails.)

One of my favorite nights of WoW came while I was playing my alt Pally, and I wrote about it here. I like to think of it as a story of determination, courage and adventure... though it may have just been about two drunk idiots and a rogue. Either way, I hope you enjoyed it.

Every time I read this story I get the same sense of excitement I got when we first downed Razorscale soooo long ago. And every time I read it I remember all the "faces" that were there, and all the personalities, and all the fun we had. This is without a doubt my favorite post on my blog.

Thank you all who've shared in my experiences over this past year (and especially those in game who've been sharing experiences for so much longer). Here's to hoping the next year is atleast as good as the first. =D

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Okay, okay, so I'm a little late to the party (it's been a hellaciously long couple of weeks for me) but Ecclesiasticaldisc posed this question on Twisted Nether recently and I feel the urge to put in my two cents.

The question is:

When should a healer let someone die? Where do you draw the line on shifting the priority of someone’s heals down (or refusing to heal them all together)? Is it if they upset you personally? If they are consistently standing in the fire? If they have lame dps? If they aren’t managing their aggro? If they go afk for fifteen minutes in the middle of a boss fight? Is it only when it’s jeopardizing the entire group’s success? I believe there is a point for every healer, but where does the gray area fall?

The short answer: Never.

Here's a quick story for you. Several months back our guildies scraped together a group for the weekly, which happened to be Razorscale. Of the 10 toons in the raid, nine were being operated by warm bodied human beings, while the 10th was a toon belonging to the husband of one of our guildies and was being towed through Ulduar on follow. Just so the husband's toon did not miss out on 5 emblems while he was away at work, his wife logged on to both PCs and both accounts, put her hubby in her seige engine for FL then parked his toon next to the turrets for Razorscale.

Not surprisingly, during the fight the MIA toon took fireball after fireball to the face and even spent some time roasting in flame breath. Completely out of range of heals and offering nothing by way of DPS, I imagine most people would've let the toon die and collect his emblems as a ghost. But not me. I hauled bark halfway across that room every time he took a hit and stood there healing him until he was out of danger.

Having to justify my actions to the raid leader, I made up some BS about how the toon's presence was saving someone else from taking fireballs and "at least he wasn't dropping flame breath in the middle of the room." But to be honest, I made the choice I made because I believe a healer's job is to keep everyone alive no matter what.

If a toon was a jerk to me (and it has happened quite a bit over the years), I would still heal them (and would consider myself an even bigger jerk if I didn't).

If some under geared, under skilled dpser was doing less damage than the tanks, I would still heal them (and be proud that I was able to see them through to the end of the fight).

If a noob was standing in fire or dropping some AoE nastiness on the raid, I would still heal them... or try to at least. (Would I be making my job easier by letting him/her bite the dust? Yes. But easy doesn't make it right.)

My job as a healer is not to decide who lives or dies, or what's best for the raid. My job is to find a way to heal whatever group of toons through whatever raid encounter with as few casualties as possible. If that means paying extra attention to the jerk in the fire doing white damage along with everybody else who has the misfortune of standing next to him/her, then that's my job.

And if you'd rather pass on that kind of challenge to go farm some loot that you're just going to replace in a month... then we don't see eye to eye on what makes this game so much fun to play.

Friday, July 9, 2010

I ended my last blog with "The masses are speaking. Let's find out if anybody at Blizzard is listening." It turns out that they were.

Nethaera announced this morning that Blizzard has decided NOT to require real names on the official forums.

/cheer

I tip my cap to all who campaigned against Blizzard Entertainment's announcement. Your voices were heard and you won one for the little guys.

And a nod of respect also goes out to Blizzard for making the tough/correct choice to reverse their original decision.

Here's to hoping awareness has been raised to just how much of your personal information can be found on the web. And let's keep our fingers crossed that the changes Blizzard is moving forward with will bring about a decrease in trolling/flaming on the offical forums.